The following letter was published, with minor editing, on October 14th in the San Mateo County Times. This was written in response to another letter, clearly defamatory to gays and lesbians, which attacked both gays and gay marriage under the guise of decency and religious belief. (On October 15, The Times published another defamatory letter, which claimed AIDS was caused by "immoral homosexual practices".) It remains very disturbing that the Times would favor so many examples of unadorned bigotry, which, if directed against any other minority, would cause a public uproar.

Wednesday, September 25, 1996

The San Mateo County Times
Editorial Page Editor John Horgan
1080 S. Amphlett Blvd.,
San Mateo, CA 94402-1802

In "Marriage is a sacrament", contributor Edward Binetti rebutted Sara Eckel's column on "The politics of sexual orientation". Eckel's thoughtfully made point was the future generations will wonder why we went to such great lengths to deny homosexuals the same basic rights as other Americans. Binetti's response was that marriage is exclusively a Christian religious concept, concluding with his comparison of homosexuals to people who "chose to fornicate with their children or with domesticated animals." One can only wonder what slurs Binetti might have offered to defame religious or ethnic minorities, and whether it would have been any more inappropriate.

Binetti confuses marriage, the religious sacrament as interpreted by himself, with marriage, everybody's legal protection of the rights and interests of a partnership. The religious right, with its growing political clout, is promoting the idea that the purpose of constitutional law is to protect church law, tradition, and the "prevalent religious culture". This requires religious discrimination. Whose churches, which religions? Why, theirs, of course. While many gays desire and do receive the blessings of their church of choice, Binetti is obviously against both religious and civil same-sex marriage. His brief sounds a lot more cogent if you already accept that separation of church and state is a very immoral idea.

Binetti claims gays are "a vociferous few who seek not rights on a parity with the many, but special treatment" ... This is shopworn hypocrisy. Gays are asking for the same rights as other Americans, no more, and no less. The "special treatment" theory is a tortured construct under which it is proper to discriminate against others, by unequal and prejudicial treatment before the law (and anything else one can get away with), when one's "profound moral beliefs" sanction discrimination. On the other hand, if your own profound moral belief is that you should act to protect yourself against that same unequal and prejudicial discrimination, you are said to seek "special treatment".

Sara Eckel's last and major point was that "profound and moral belief" is certainly not license to discriminate while hiding behind anti-discrimination law. The so-called "Christian right" would have us believe that tolerance and equal treatment are the special province of the radical left and the devil. There are a great and growing number of good people on all sides of the political spectrum who are getting sick and tired of the politics of discrimination, which only distract from what should be the real issues, while hurting good human beings in your own family or next door. The sad truth is that there are too few on the right with the courage to stand up and say, "this is wrong." Opinion like Binetti's should give them the impetus to do so.

Also published in La Parola, ©1996, copyright Alex Forbes